


bit my pretty red heart in two

by diana_hawthorne (stsgirlie)



Category: Cracks (2009)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:40:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5336117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stsgirlie/pseuds/diana_hawthorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She grows up. This is the most important thing that has happened to her in the years since her death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bit my pretty red heart in two

at twenty i tried to die  
and get back, back, back to you.  
i thought even the bones would do.  
-sylvia plath

They bury her not on Stanley Island but in her homeland, in Italy. Her father (fairy-like, Laurel whispers, like Oberon with his golden hair and golden eyes) comes to the school, an Italian prince she dismisses. Surely no serious man could dress in what they believe to be the height of fashion.

His wide mouth dips low at the corners as he refuses to see his dead daughter. She watches from the corner and curses him.

(She hears Fiamma’s voice whisper you shouldn’t be cruel and she puts her hands to her ears to block out the quiet persistent whisper. It doesn’t work.)

She says goodbye to a wooden box.

 

Her bones are silent in the Italian soil because only bodies tell a story. And though her body is gone her story lives on in the girls who killed her.

 

She remembers her best in the water, cutting through the air like a knife and entering the lake with barely a splash. She herself can no longer swim, for in the water she remembers her all too clearly.

The way her voice sounded. The way her skin smelled, tasted.

She swam once after she died and after five minutes in the water she had to pull herself out, dripping and breathless and completely overwhelmed.

(She hears her whisper in her ears as she beats her way through the water.)

 

Poppy leaves the school at the end of the year and marries soon after, marries a man much older than herself with money and very limited expectations of her. All she has to do is look beautiful and when Di comes to her wedding she sees that this is all she wants from life now. Her blue eyes are strangely empty as they look at her, and there is no light of recognition.

She leaves England for good soon after that; there is nothing left for her there.

(Or anywhere, but she doesn’t know that, not yet.)

 

It has been two years and every day, every second, she remembers Fiamma. She is under her skin and in her blood and even on her tongue, her name echoing in every word she says.

She can’t take it any longer, how can she? She doesn’t understand how she’s lasted this long without her. Without anyone she has loved.

Miss G is gone and Poppy is in London with her husband and the rest of the swimming team are at school still. There is no one to talk to about this for the last time she saw Poppy, at her wedding reception, she turned away from her and left.

Miss G feigns ignorance of her terrible role in Fiamma’s demise. In her letters she skates over the end of her career at the school, simply asking after Di and informing her of her current whereabouts.

But she receives one letter, written in a drunken, wobbly hand, that she cannot bear to read, written as it is in red ink with one word jumping out at her.

Fiamma.

 

She travels to try to forget her, fills her mind with a language that is not Italian, one that does not hold the rhythmic curves of Fiamma’s native tongue. German is her choice and she quickly becomes fluent. She applies herself with an intensity that surprises her, that never showed itself when it really mattered.

She reads Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus and there is a poem and a verse that strikes a chord in her heart, that thrill her soul. She writes them in a postcard to Poppy, leaving it unsigned. Even after all these years she knows that she will still recognise her handwriting.

Geht ihr zu Bette, so laßt auf dem Tische  
Brot nicht und Milch nicht: die Toten ziehts.

If you go to bed, leave on the table  
No bread, no milk: they draw the dead.

 

She grows up. This is the most important thing that has happened to her in the years since her death. She grows up and she lives in the real world... although she does not really live. How can she, after what she did?

She killed not only Fiamma that day but herself.

 

She desires oblivion in the very depths of her soul. Her bones long for immolation. Death by fire, she thinks, would be a fitting end for her, an acceptable punishment for her sins.

 

Her bones lie in the corner of a churchyard, in a grave neglected by all but the groundskeeper. No flowers adorn her final resting-place, though Di knows that her father has extensive gardeners. Or had.

What a terrible, pitiful thing to be forgotten.

And she has been forgotten, by everyone who matters except herself, and she wants her back, even after everything she’s done.

Even though she hates her still, for being perfect, for taking her place in Miss G’s affections… for dying.

And in the end, this is the sin for which she cannot be forgiven.


End file.
